On December 10, 2015, nine months after Jordan’s death, the Additional Sessions Judge Chiranjib Bhattacharya of Kolkata Sessions Court had pronounced the other three accused Ruman Khan, Naser Khan and Sumit Bajaj, who were on trial, guilty of gangrape, criminal conspiracy, voluntarily causing hurt, criminal intimidation and common intention, under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code. Three of them were sentenced a term of 10 years in jail by the court.
On the night of February 5, 2012, Suzette Jordan, a divorcee and mother of two, was beaten up and gangraped at gun point inside a moving car after she had come out of a night club in Park Street and then thrown off the vehicle near Kolkata.
Days after she filed her complaint on February 9, 2012, ignoring disparaging comments and initial reluctance of the Park Street police station personnel, the Chief Minister of West Bengal Mamata Banerjee called her case to be a “cooked up” one to malign the state government. Mamata Banerjee’s comments were widely lashed by the public. But that was not the end of her struggle to justice.
Trinamool MP Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar called the entire incident “a sex deal gone wrong” and ex-Misiter Madan Mitra questioned what was she doing at a night club so late in the night and said that the allegation was a “fabricated complaint meant to extort money”.
Jordan came forward and revealed her identity on television in June 2013 and urged the public to call her a “rape survivor” and not the “Park Street rape victim”.
On 13 March 2015, she died of multi-organ failure after being diagnosed with encephalitis.
Sourced from agencies, Feature image courtesy: s4.scoopwhoop.com
